Ministers reject Iraq inquiry calls

MPs have rejected calls from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats for an immediate inquiry into the war in Iraq.

An Opposition day debate in the Commons saw the Conservatives call for a full public investigation into the circumstances surrounding the war.

But despite being supported by 12 Labour rebels, the motion was defeated by 299 votes to 271.

The government has indicated that it will be willing to sanction an inquiry, but not until British troops have been brought home.

However the Tories say that with the UK now performing only an overwatch role in Basra in the south of the country, the time is right for the lessons to be learned.

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague opened the debate by calling for a Privy Council inquiry into the origins and conduct of the war.

"The truth is that the case for commencing an inquiry of the type or of a similar type to the one we are calling for today has become overwhelming," he told MPs.

"If ministers continue to argue against it they will be isolated voices, holding out against a preponderance of national opinion which embraces every other party and many members of their own.

"They may be unwilling to embark on something which of course would add to the duties of some of them, but they should not shirk this task because it seems unpleasant, and they should remember that if this inquiry is not established by this administration, it most surely will be by the next one."

Hague said that it would be "an error of policy, as well as of politics" not to hold the inquiry.

"Not to do so would be to frustrate the wishes not of any one party or faction, but of the British people as a whole," he argued.

Foreign secretary David Miliband, speaking for an amendment in the name of the prime minister, said there was agreement across the House that "an inquiry into the Iraq war will be necessary".

"The dispute between us does not concern substance, but timing," he said.

"Given reports from Basra today", he said, most people would see the Tory call for an immediate inquiry as "a bizarre choice of priority now".

"We say, in the words of the prime minister in this House on the 19th March, and I quote: 'The right time to look at these issues and review the lessons learned is when our troops have finished their work in Iraq'."

But the Liberal Democrats were also backing calls for a swift inquiry.

"One would have though that an inquiry ought to be automatic when a decision of the magnitude of going to war goes so catastrophically wrong," said Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman Ed Davey.

"To put such an inquiry off, even five years afterwards, is nothing short of a scandal."